Earth Sciences news
Methane gas likely spewing into the oceans through vents in sea floor (w/ Video)
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Sep 02, 2009 |
4.2 / 5 (10) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists worry that rising global temperatures accompanied by melting permafrost in arctic regions will initiate the release of underground methane into the atmosphere. Once released, that ...
Astronomers find coldest, driest, calmest place on Earth
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Aug 31, 2009 |
4.5 / 5 (42) |
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The search for the best observatory site in the world has lead to the discovery of what is thought to be the coldest, driest, calmest place on Earth. No human is thought to have ever been there but it is expected to yield ...
Scientists find 'great Pacific Ocean garbage patch'
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Aug 27, 2009 |
3.8 / 5 (33) |
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Scientists have just completed an unprecedented journey into the vast and little-explored "Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch."
Study: Small fluctuations in solar activity, large influence on the climate
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Aug 27, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (16) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Subtle connections between the 11-year solar cycle, the stratosphere, and the tropical Pacific Ocean work in sync to generate periodic weather patterns that affect much of the globe, according ...
Lightning’s Mirror Image, Only Much Bigger (w/ Video)
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Aug 23, 2009 |
4.5 / 5 (17) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- With a very lucky shot, scientists have captured a one-second image and the electrical fingerprint of huge lightning that flowed 40 miles upward from the top of a storm.
Water in Earth's mantle may be associated with subduction
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Aug 19, 2009 |
4.3 / 5 (10) |
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A team of scientists from Oregon State University has created the first global three-dimensional map of electrical conductivity in the Earth's mantle and their model suggests that that enhanced conductivity ...
Geobiologists propose that the earliest complex organisms fed by absorbing ocean buffet
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Aug 19, 2009 |
4.2 / 5 (6) |
0
Research at Virginia Tech has shown that the oldest complex life forms -- living in nutrient-rich oceans more than 540 million years ago - likely fed by osmosis.
Listening to rocks helps researchers better understand earthquakes
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Aug 17, 2009 |
5 / 5 (7) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- When Apollo punished King Midas by giving him donkey ears, only the king and his barber knew. Unable to keep a secret, the barber dug a hole, whispered into it, "King Midas has donkey ears," ...
Harbingers of increased Atlantic hurricane activity identified
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Aug 12, 2009 |
3.6 / 5 (16) |
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Reconstructions of past hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean indicate that the most active hurricane period in the past was during the "Medieval Climate Anomaly" about a thousand years ago when climate ...
NASA Goes Inside a Volcano, Monitors Activity
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Aug 07, 2009 |
5 / 5 (3) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have placed high-tech "spiders" inside and around the mouth of Mount St. Helens, one of the most active volcanoes in the United States. Networks such as these could one day be used ...
Long debate ended over cause, demise of ice ages -- may also help predict future
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Aug 06, 2009 |
4.4 / 5 (23) |
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Researchers have largely put to rest a long debate on the underlying mechanism that has caused periodic ice ages on Earth for the past 2.5 million years - they are ultimately linked to slight shifts in solar radiation caused ...
Shaking the Earth: How Water Helps Tectonic Plates Slide in New Zealand
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Aug 05, 2009 |
4 / 5 (6) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- New Zealand is the site of one of the world’s youngest subduction zones, where the Pacific Plate of Earth’s crust dives beneath the Australian Plate. Now, a University of Utah study shows ...
Oxidized lava may help explain Earth's evolution
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jul 30, 2009 |
3.7 / 5 (6) |
2
(AP) -- Material from volcanoes where the Earth's plates squeeze together is more oxidized than in regions where the seafloor splits apart, a finding that helps shed light on some of the basic processes in ...
Extraterrestrial platinum was 'stirred' into the Earth
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jul 30, 2009 |
4.6 / 5 (10) |
3
(PhysOrg.com) -- A research program aimed at using platinum as an exploration guide for nickel has for the first time been able to put a time scale on the planet’s large-scale convection processes.
150 years later, Darwin vindicated... by jellyfish: Researchers link tiny sea creatures to large-scale ocean mixing
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jul 29, 2009 |
4.6 / 5 (21) |
10
(PhysOrg.com) -- Creatures large and small may play an important role in the stirring of ocean waters, according to a study released Wednesday that confirms a theory advanced by Charles Darwin.
